'09 Old Spock is the same Spock we first met in 'The Cage.' What he mistook for mere time travel via Nero's red matter was in fact them crossing universes - from the Prime Universe over to the Abramsverse 150-something years in the past.

Click to expand...

+

I agree with you but the movie is as clear as mudd about that. Young Kirk and young Spock et al. sure do think that Old Spock and Nero are from their future. But they're not.

Click to expand...

Let's not get carried away here. Spock and Nero time-traveled from their era to their past. The timelines diverged because of their incursion. Whether there are parallel timelines is irrelevant. They can no more travel to "their" proper past than you can travel to the universe in which you turned right when instead you turned left.

Click to expand...

Actually, "Parallels" established that you can travel into different timelines.

True, but why not take what Spock said in XI at face value and accept the Kelvin design and aesthetic is a retcon as well?

Click to expand...

Because, as I said, there are other elements in the film that don't perfectly fit, unless you interpret them as retconning TOS itself. Once that degree of retconning is occurring, it's better described as a reboot. Spock's exposition isn't encountered in the film until after the evidence of a reboot is already water under the bridge.

Although I don't know for sure, because I haven't seen it, and maybe it won't, nevertheless I fully expect Into Darkness to rewrite parts of the timeline before Nero's incursion, piling more and more evidence on the side of the new continuity being a reboot.

Click to expand...

That's not a spoiler, that's speculation. But whether or not that's the case, I'd say the IDW comic ("The Return of the Archons," among other stories) and Star Trek: The Video Game (Everything to do with the Gorn) have already beat STID to the punch on that score. There's no way the things detailed in those two sources happened in any form in the pre-Nero Prime Universe. (And before you start that 'if it's not on screen, it's not canon', screenwriter Roberto Orci oversaw and collaborated on both projects.)

Re: Is everything before the destruction of the kelvin exactly the sam

From another thread, because it's relevant here:

Christopher said:

Let's remember that Roddenberry was glad to completely redesign the Klingons for TMP, and asked fans to accept that they'd really looked that way all along and the makeup on TOS just hadn't been up to depicting it.

True, but why not take what Spock said in XI at face value and accept the Kelvin design and aesthetic is a retcon as well?

Click to expand...

Because, as I said, there are other elements in the film that don't perfectly fit, unless you interpret them as retconning TOS itself. Once that degree of retconning is occurring, it's better described as a reboot. Spock's exposition isn't encountered in the film until after the evidence of a reboot is already water under the bridge.

Although I don't know for sure, because I haven't seen it, and maybe it won't, nevertheless I fully expect Into Darkness to rewrite parts of the timeline before Nero's incursion, piling more and more evidence on the side of the new continuity being a reboot.

Click to expand...

Neither did Enterprise, photonic torpedoes and phase cannons in an era that had supposedly only used nukes and lasers?

True, but why not take what Spock said in XI at face value and accept the Kelvin design and aesthetic is a retcon as well?

Click to expand...

Because, as I said, there are other elements in the film that don't perfectly fit, unless you interpret them as retconning TOS itself. Once that degree of retconning is occurring, it's better described as a reboot. Spock's exposition isn't encountered in the film until after the evidence of a reboot is already water under the bridge.

Although I don't know for sure, because I haven't seen it, and maybe it won't, nevertheless I fully expect Into Darkness to rewrite parts of the timeline before Nero's incursion, piling more and more evidence on the side of the new continuity being a reboot.

Click to expand...

That's not a spoiler, that's speculation. But whether or not that's the case, I'd say the IDW comic ("The Return of the Archons," among other stories) and Star Trek: The Video Game (Everything to do with the Gorn) have already beat STID to the punch on that score. There's no way the things detailed in those two sources happened in any form in the pre-Nero Prime Universe. (And before you start that 'if it's not on screen, it's not canon', screenwriter Roberto Orci oversaw and collaborated on both projects.)

Let's remember that Roddenberry was glad to completely redesign the Klingons for TMP, and asked fans to accept that they'd really looked that way all along and the makeup on TOS just hadn't been up to depicting it.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Exactly, this has happened before, and nobody complained, and yet the new guy walks in with a new direction and all of a sudden it's INSANITY.

Let's remember that Roddenberry was glad to completely redesign the Klingons for TMP, and asked fans to accept that they'd really looked that way all along and the makeup on TOS just hadn't been up to depicting it.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Then Enterprise shot that down. But I suppose you can still apply that logic to other stuff.

Re: Is everything before the destruction of the kelvin exactly the sam

Maybe you folks can help explain how Judi Dench managed to be M (different M.s at that, though both are pretty incompetent) in both the Brosnan seasoned-Bond universe and the Craig-protoBond-even-though-he-is-too-short-and-ugly-Bond universe.

If the KELVIN is supposed to represent real universe early 23rd cent tech, must be pre-transtator, because everything is way too big and bulky and contemporary ... of course you could make same claim about all Abrams belowdeck stuff.

Re: Is everything before the destruction of the kelvin exactly the sam

Eh, I pretty much considered the Abramverse an alternate one before Nero and Spock entered into it. All the Federation ships were bigger for example and their weaponry was different. And somehow I doubt Kirk growing up with daddy issues caused the Federation to vastly change ship designs, build the Enterprise in Iowa as opposed to San Fransisco Shipyard, different uniforms and another things.

Similar? Sure. But definitely different. Besides, it makes it easier for Abrams not having to keep up with any sort of continuity beyond his own work.

Re: Is everything before the destruction of the kelvin exactly the sam

Star Trek generally depicts a timeline whose past is in flux; a time-traveller alters the past but due to a technobabble explanation usually relating to chronotons (or chromatons?) the time-traveller's past and memories have some level of immunity to the changes. We see this in DS9 (eg Past Tense) and of course in the movie First Contact, where the 24th-century Earth becomes borgified from the past but the Enterprise is unaffected due to being caught in the time machine's backwash. So there could have been any number of changes to the past, just ones that we haven't seen. And if you apply the "time is in flux" view to the Abramsverse then the timeline's past prior to Nero's arrival would presumably have been affected too, as future-to-past journeys originating after that would be affected.

But time-travel fiction rarely makes sense or is consistent, and I guess the rule for Trek time-travel limitations is the same for the rule regarding the Enterprise's speed limitations: They're whatever the current writer needs them to be.

Anyway, if you prefer the Prime Timeline to be immutable then you can adduce as evidence the fact that Futurespock's ship uses stardates in the Abramscerse format and not the established xxxxx.xx format.

Re: Is everything before the destruction of the kelvin exactly the sam

As far as I'm concerned, the novels are the true continuation of the Prime universe, and the writers have already said on numerous occasions that when their timeline reaches 2387 (they're presently around 2384), Romulus is being destroyed and Spock is vanishing into a black hole never to be seen again.

I have no problem with enourmous ships like the Kelvin preceeding the TOS Enterprise. Simply put, in the Prime universe, Starfleet shrunk their front line ships wheras in the AU they didn't. I suggest different leadership in Starfleet - perhaps Admiral Nogura likes Voyager-scale ships wheras Admiral Marcus (or their predecessors) favoured large vessels equivalent in size to the Enterprise-D. Like the E-D and Voyager, both have the same capabilities.

And as for the way things look, it's not more advanced in-universe, it just looks that way because it's 2013 not 1967.

Re: Is everything before the destruction of the kelvin exactly the sam

Before the destruction of the Kelvin?

There were 5 television series produced and 10 feature films. Plus an animated series. All of various degrees of qualities and consistency. Which all of us will continue to watch and debate until we elderly, decades after this stuff was made! So nothing has changed. Now 2 new movies have been added to this group. Likely with more films and television to follow at some point.

All while CBS and Paramount continues to rake in the money from us. Once again nothing has changed.

Re: Is everything before the destruction of the kelvin exactly the sam

I think they've made an effort to keep their reboot largely consistant with the old - enough so that one can accept their story of a divergeant timeline if they so choose. Which I do

After all, TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY are all supposed to be part of the same universe, and yet they're packed with innumerable contradictions and rewrites an whatnot. According to TOS, Voyager should have made their 75 year journey home in a month at most. DS9's wormhole premise is similarly buggered. Yet they all cross-over at one point or another. Is this really any different?

Re: Is everything before the destruction of the kelvin exactly the sam

Seems to me that the Temporal shenanigans in Enterprise would have caused considerable changes to the timeline, and that is on top of the alterations caused by First Contact.
Off the top of my head, the Klingons were encountered early ( though it would appear that contact would have been made by 2154 anyway). A different Doctor was assigned to the Enterprise ( with potentially grave repercussions for at least one species). Arguably T'pol would not have been part of the crew.
And those are fairly cosmetic changes, the Suliban were advanced by a future agent, and Enterprise got its hands on some of that technology. The Earth was attacked by the Xindi, and Enterprise entered the expanse, gaining knowledge of Tech it would not have hitherto seen. Its almost certain this would have made Earth a bit more militaristic which would alter ship design and uniforms etc.
Additionally, since Trek shows a number of stable timeloops, its entirely possible that THOSE are affected meaning that Nero's arrival itself could impact on events prior to 2233 ( wibbly,wobbly, timey,wimey you might say )

So in summation, no everything was not necessarily the same before the Kelvins destruction, but that does not necessarily mean it is not the prime universe.

... the movie First Contact, where the 24th-century Earth becomes borgified from the past but the Enterprise is unaffected due to being caught in the time machine's backwash. So there could have been any number of changes to the past, just ones that we haven't seen.

Click to expand...

Prior to the Enterprise destroying the Borg sphere in the past, the Borg fired on the surface of Earth, killing and injuring people. Many of the people killed were people who worked on the warp ship.

These people would (obviously) do no more work on the warp project, and have no future children. I assume that Lily was one of the three people aboard the warp ship when it made it's first flight, that both Riker and LaForge were on the flight means (imo) that the person who originally was the third crewmember was killed (or injured), otherwise they would have been in the position that they were trained for. With only Lily having to be replaced.

Removing that many people from the on-going timeline, several of them talented warp designers and engineers, had to have had some effect on the future.

'09 Old Spock is the same Spock we first met in 'The Cage.' What he mistook for mere time travel via Nero's red matter was in fact them crossing universes - from the Prime Universe over to the Abramsverse 150-something years in the past.

Click to expand...

+

I agree with you but the movie is as clear as mudd about that. Young Kirk and young Spock et al. sure do think that Old Spock and Nero are from their future. But they're not.

Click to expand...

Let's not get carried away here. Spock and Nero time-traveled from their era to their past. The timelines diverged because of their incursion. Whether there are parallel timelines is irrelevant. They can no more travel to "their" proper past than you can travel to the universe in which you turned right when instead you turned left.

Click to expand...

I don't mind that explanation its just that the movie never tells you that the times lines diverged because of their incursion...you have to take the writers word after the fact.